Sadly, most people have no idea where the Christmas holiday traditions come from, but they swear that it is all about Jesus.

Surprise! The Christmas holiday as we know it is really an aggregation of a bunch of mythology and customs that were actually around before the birth of Jesus, who, according to Scripture, was actually born in September.

And, while some Christians may not want to hear it, even the story of a god’s rebirth into a new being predates Jesus.

December 25 as a commemorative date was a Roman celebration of Saturn, who was the rebirth of the Sun God. According to the Romans, the Sun God was resurrected three days after his death. This resurrection caused the Romans to celebrate with gift giving and processions of celebration featuring priests carrying wreaths of Evergreen boughs.

As for the actual Christmas tree, the Germans used the Evergreen tree to worship the Yule God. Sound familiar? Of course-Yuletide greetings...Yule logs...”Yuletide carols being sung by the choir...” The Germans also had a tradition of giving gifts as a part of the Yule celebration.

A Winter Solstice celebration, Yule was Christianized as Christmas and imbued with the birth of Jesus story. The Romans incorporated this and a number of other pagan celebrations when Constantine recreated, rewrote and consolidated Christianity and the Bible in 432 AD.

And finally, the German Yule celebration included hanging mistletoe and holly. How “Christian” are these symbols? Let’s see...going back to the Sun God, worshippers believed that the White berries on the mistletoe represented the Sun God’s semen, while the red holly was held by witches to represent the menstrual blood of heaven’s queen, Diana.

Of course, since many Christians never really read the Bible or study history, I will be seen as evil and a hater of Christians.

But, let’s take a look at who believes in God.

According to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, ten per cent of Protestants, twenty-one per cent of Roman Catholics and fifty-two per cent of Jews do not believe in God. Surprised? Well, there’s more that may also shock you.

Eighty-four per cent of women believe in God, while only seventy-three per cent of men do.

In terms of education and faith, eighty-two per cent of those with no college education believe in God, while only seventy-three per cent of those who went to college have faith.

Eighty-seven per cent of Republicans believe, while seventy-eight per cent of Democrats and seventy-five per cent of Independents have faith.

When it comes to race, guess who has the greatest faith? African Americans lead the faithful at ninety-one per cent, while eighty-one per cent of Hispanics and only seventy-eight per cent of Whites have faith.

That brings us back to the holiday season. Many people do not believe in God and yet they celebrate Christmas. Still, others believe in God, but do not believe in Jesus Christ and yet, they too, celebrate Christmas.

The season has come to symbolize much more than the Christian holiday it originally was designed to be. It is now a season-a season of love and giving, a season of understanding and a season of peace and kindness.

Such a powerful season should have a powerful impact on people, particularly men and women who claim to love and believe in Jesus Christ, who, incidentally, was not a Christian, but a Hebrew.

My point? Well, it’s rather simple. As a man of God, I am at once disgusted and saddened by the lunatics and overbearing heretics who claim to represent God and who claim to know Jesus (Yahshua, the Black revolutionary). As a scholar, I already know that they have more than likely never read the Bible for themselves or studied history and therefore, have no real clue as to the reality of Jesus of Nazareth.

If you really read the Bible, then you will know that Jesus was not trying to convince people to worship within any religion, and he certainly wasn’t trying to push people to worship him. If you claim to aspire to be like Jesus, you should realize that you only do that when you are tolerant of other belief systems.

Knowledge of the Bible and of history will reveal that what Jesus was trying to deliver to other humans, more than anything else, was an understanding of conscious evolution, which means that he had mastered the power of critical thinking. What would Jesus do? Well, he wouldn’t be hating people because they hold divergent faiths. Believe that.

In organizations such as the Green Beret, the slogan goes, “Many are called but few are chosen.” Such is also the case with universal conscious evolution.

Jesus states in Matthew 7:14: “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

Jesus is saying that “narrow is the way,” and “few there be that find it,” which means that the true path will not be followed by the majority. In other words, whatever is popular, is more than likely NOT the correct path. Also, by saying “few there be that find it,” Jesus is illustrating that the path is not a mass pursuit, but that each individual should determine for self the way which “leadeth unto life.”

As A HEBREW HIMSELF, Jesus advocated for intrinsic spiritual enlightenment and conscious evolution, not blind and exclusionary participation in any one religion. Also, like many other prophets and revolutionaries, Jesus was not very popular during his time, and neither were his doctrines.

Remember, Jesus was not a Christian, and promoted only love for humanity and for his father, God, not for any religion. Christianity was manufactured following his murder at the hands of crazed religious zealots, who curiously, were promoting THEIR religious beliefs when they killed him.

Please allow me to quote three immortal thinkers:

According to Mark Twain, “If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be...a Christian.”

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread,” said Mahatma Ghandi.

And, finally, from the new school of conscious evolution and critical thinking, Darryl James preaches that “There are perhaps more atheists created from the unwitting repulsion generated by religious zealots than the careful work of the devil himself.”

The conscious evolution promoted by Jesus, Mohammed and other historical visionaries allows humans to transcend the clannishness of religions in order to focus on the universal love found in the true Kingdom of God. There is no evolution in promoting one religion over another. If all paths lead to God, then your path is as valid as my own, unless of course, you have spoken directly to God—in which case, you are either delusional, a prophet, or full of crap.

Religion, faith and spirituality are individual pursuits that are very elusive in their purity. There is no evolution in pushing the same vapid thoughts to the masses without critical thinking and a historical perspective.

Take that into consideration the next time you send out your insipid Jesus emails or otherwise deliver such messages unwarranted without a care in the world for your brethren who did not ask for them. How mean spirited and witless is it to continue to flood the masses with information that you yourself more than likely don’t really understand?

This Christmas season, spread love, spread holiday cheer and spread the spirit of giving and sharing, which does not mean jamming your religion down the throats of the masses.

Quite frankly, in doing so, you are moving away from the conscious evolution pursued by Jesus of Nazareth, and are therefore, DANCING WITH THE DEVIL. Nevertheless, our God has given you the freedom to do so, just as Hitler, the slave masters, and the warmongering leaders of this nation were allowed to make their own choices on God’s green earth.

Just don’t lie and claim to do it in the name of Jesus.

Happy Holidays!

Darryl James n is an award-winning author who is now a filmmaker. His first mini-movie, “Crack,” was released in March of 2006. He is currently filming a full length documentary. James’ latest book, “Bridging The Black Gender Gap,” is the basis of his lectures and seminars. Previous installments of this column can now be viewed at www.bridgecolumn.com. James can be reached at
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